Title: Occam's RazorRating: NC-17Pairings: Harry/ Draco, Harry/SeverusDisclaimer: All things Harry Potter belong to J.K.Rowling and her book and film companies.Summary: Two years after the end of the war, only desperation could make Harry seek out the help of a one-time enemy.Warnings: Sex toys, rimming, bondageAuthor's notes: For celandineb, wrapped up in a pouffy bow: bondage, voyeurism, masturbation, toys, delayed orgasm, rimming, dirty talk, frottage, desperate!sex, shower!sex, spanking (implied), UST and a plot, oh my! Hope this makes your holiday a happy one! Also, a word of gratitude to my beta reader for her sharp eyes and 'devil's advocate' par excellence skills.

A thank you to gmth, whose years of hard work (read: countless hours of matching up participants, cracking the deadline whip, arranging pinch-hitters, smoothing ruffled feathers, recipient of much-deserved praise—and, it must be noted, a few piles of virtual shit—formatting and posting, in addition to—god only knows how she does it—reading every single fic) have enriched us beyond measure. All 'O's, full marks, and an award for 'Special Services' to the fandom for you!

[I'm going to try to comment so as not to spoil anything major in the story for anyone who might see this before reading the whole thing... some minor detail spoilers, though.]

Oh. My. Word.

I can hardly say how thrilled I was by this story -- what can I ever have done to deserve such a wonderful gift? It's just... wow. *sniffles*

The development of the relationships between Harry and Severus, and between Harry and Draco, was handled so well -- they're in a kind of hothouse situation, spending so much time together, so that although it didn't take all that long in fic-time it was completely plausible (this more applies to the situation with Draco, of course, as being faster).

I adored the H/D part (Draco being very much about the "sex is for fun, emotion is optional" in my usual take on him). Having him become a jazz pianist brought me a big grin, too; you either know me really well or you're a lucky guesser, as I enjoy jazz and used to play piano myself, so that was great fun.

But the H/S just brought tears to my eyes. It starts from small origins, and just grows -- as inexplicable as any love in real life may be, yet as natural. Like Harry, I had my suspicions about why Severus seemed more "real" than any other portrait, but your portrayal of his uncertainties and difficulties in working out the truth had me just as confused as he. That Draco felt like the "right" person to help him work out the solution... well, that came to make more sense in the end, with the surprising revelation of the choice Severus had to make at the last moment.

The last is just one example of the tightness with which you wove together all the details of this marvelous story. And the writing is lovely, just lovely. Again, I'm simply thrilled to have such a gift -- 90,000+ words? *faints* I read through it quickly this time, because I wanted to be able to thank you as soon as I could, but I will be rereading it more than once, I can assure you! {{{enormous hugs}}} and thanks to you, my mystery author! I can't wait to find out who you are!

And I didn't say anything about the smut! Ack! Which was fabulous too -- you hit a whole bunch of my kinks beautifully and *coughs* left me totally distracted at work today. Which is probably a good thing, actually, this time in the semester. *vbg*

Heya! Wanted to tell you that all the misgivings I had about this story were put to rest by your comment. I initially considered your prompt, and what you listed in your journal, in addition to trolling through your entries, trying to get a feel for what you'd like. You said no OTP, but since I'd had a Snarry idea bonking around in my head since Prophecy, I decided to run with it. The H/D part evolved slowly, and was changed in a major way just before I started to write. I know there's been some discussion about the story--that it's a weak Snarry, that I didn't do right by Draco, and perhaps I could've remedied some of this...but I was already 'long-winded', and several major scenes were cut out, and perhaps the end result suffered a bit.

Some readers caught on to why there was so much explicit sexual description when it came to H/D, but description of a different sort when it came to the Snarry. I'd hoped that the differences there would underline the nature of the two relationships.

Thanks so much for the positive response, and the excellent prompt--I don't usually write 'sex for the sake of sex', but with such wonderful kinks, I have to admit that I did enjoy myself, in the 'sex is for fun' part of the story.